drewguy

Seems to me that if you have nothing to declare and are not stopped then there is no opportunity to fail to declare for which you could get in trouble. If the agent stops you randomly and says "do you have anything to declare" you could say "some chocolates" and proceed from there. Of course, if you have a prohibited ham, you could tell the agent "BTW, I have some ham".

Keep in mind that under 19 CFR 148.16 you are permitted to declare any items up until baggage inspection begins and avoid any penalty for failure to declare. So even if you are asked at this point for an inspection you should be allowed to tell the inspector that you have X, even if it need not be declared. Up to that point there's not even a basis to say your declaration was false, because you haven't made one.

abaheti

I get what you're saying, but until there are more data points here I think I'll just hand the slip over and say something like "Hey, I have food, did I miss the place where I'm supposed to declare?" Worst case they ask and I say chocolates.

As Global Entry, do we have some affirmative duty to declare declarable things even if not asked? (Assuming I had something declarable.)

bostontraveler

One of the first questions on here. Yes, the obligation is to declare truthfully on the kiosk and then explain (you will be asked) to the agent.

Customs in the US is far more ostensibly stringent than in Europe in my experience.
What I always do is to declare anything that I can put in my mouth. That includes vitamins. When push comes to shove they too are considered a food. May sound crazy but I'd rather be over the top than lose my Global Entry or have problems. I now religiously say Yes at the GE kiosk and then explain. Yet to have a problem.
One question-- because I think I missed something in the threads. How is it that facial recognition is playing into this? Where/how is it being applied?
Thanks.

abaheti

Sorry, what I meant is what if the kiosk uses facial recognition and doesn't ask questions as I understand was described above? Face generates a slip to be handed in, but I have something declarable... My plan would be to tell the agent I hand the slip to.

hirohito888

Another data point: JFK T1 with facial recognition and no questions on screen. Rather, when I got to the officer, he asked very directly if I have anything to declare including food or anything over personal limit. I showed him my duty free snacks and he yelled back at me saying that's not food ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The facial recognition was fast, I guess it helps speed up the lines for the machines. Personally I prefer answering questions on screen instead of talking to a customs agent, but that's just me.

narvik

I am a little concerned about this new system.
Had the same experience as OP arriving at EWR; no questions on screen.
This time I didn't have any food, but on previous occasions I did, and made it a habit to ALWAYS declare it at the kiosk.

One time I did bring food items that weren't allowed unbeknownst to me (le Parfait® in a tube....it has pork in it, duh!), and the staff at EWR took it away, as they should have.
The comment to me was: "If you hadn't declared it, and we had found it, you would have lost your Global Entry privileges."

My concern now is, that if one brings food items and verbally declares it to the officer who is manning the exit, he or she will need to make a judgment call. What if they say "it's okay", but at the baggage carousel the dog sniffs (or whatever) something out, and one is "caught" with a banned food item? Two scenarios: 1) the officer was simply wrong and didn't correctly identify a banned food item, or 2) not all items are mentioned to the officer (by oversight, not by deliberate omission).
I'm worried this would lead to complications.
The previous system seemed more "accurate".

Maybe they didn't need to speed things up by using facial recognition at EWR: maybe they could have left the old system in place but made sure that more than 20% of the machines actually worked and didn't have a paper "OUT OF ORDER" sign taped to them!

TDV

At that point, the CPB officer with the dog sniffer would ask you what do you have in the bag. If you answered the question, then you have made a verbal declaration.

drewguy

There's a difference between making a non-truthful declaration and not being asked to make a declaration. With facial recognition, the latter is the issue, and the question is whether there's an affirmative obligation to declare something, even if it's "okay". (The "Any food" question requires a "yes" answer even for things that are allowable, hence the issue and thread.)

bostontraveler

was just moved into this thread by the moderator- this comment was more for the previous thread/system.

not at all familiar with this new system.

TWA884

@abaheti's question, to which you responded, had to do with declaring items which should be declared when using a facial recognition kiosk that does not ask the questions.

And with that, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator

bostontraveler

Yes, that's clear. Sorry got a little confused with what was on which forum.

ani90

That one declares something either verbally or on the screen does not exonerate them of the consequences of bringing a banned food item into the USA. It's like the customs agent with sniffer dog asking, what's it your bag and answer is 'an antelope' and one expects to be tapped on the shoulder. Not making a declaration certainly can be bad, but making a declaration if trying to bring in contraband items does not remove the fact that one attempted to bring in contraband, so consequences can still be faced at discretion of the officer.

TWA884

Folks,

This is the second time that I am making this request in this thread.

For indexing and future search purposes, please get back on topic, that is how to make customs declaration of items that should be declared when using a GE kiosk with facial recognition technology which does not display the relevant questions.

Members come to this forum in for advice and to search for practical information, please let's make it easy for them to find it.

We have plenty of other threads discussing what must be be declared and the consequences of not declaring such items.

If you wish to argue that the new kiosks will result in travelers failing to declare food and other items which must be declared, please start a new thread in the Checkpoints and Borders Policy Debate forum.

Future off-topic messages will be relocated or summarily deleted.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation,

TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator

televisor

So what is the new system.
1. Use a Kiosk which only takes care of ID'ing you.
2. Hand your receipt to someone... but is this when exiting the immigration hall, or when exiting baggage claim/customs?

At SFO and IAD (midfield), they've been collecting receipts when exiting immigraiton - but they still do the full declaration at the kiosk (and the machine uses fingerprints to ID you). You can then exit customs without any more questioning - there is an agent standing there, but they only seem to randomly sample people for additional questions, most people leave without any interaction. At Newark, many months ago, I remember them collecting GE receipts at the exit from customs, but they'd still ask me if I had anything at that point (I'd usually declared food, so I usually had the O). Sometimes they wouldn't ask me antyhing despite declaring food.

But from this thread I really can't tell what's going on. The logical place to declare would be exiting the baggage claim at customs, is that where someone is? (Presumably they'd always have one agent standing behind the GE machines to make sure people were actually admitted by the machine.)

televisor

Interesting... further upthread, an ESTA user reported that they had to go to an officer for manual admission (which results in the stamp), but it looks like they've at least fixed that issue. But not necessarily in a good way.

(I actually seem to remember a similar business/tourist question when checking in with UA on my most recent flight... but I'm not 100% sure anymore whether it actually was the UA flight, or some other European LH flight. In any case, I was arriving into SFO with the old system, where you manually select WT vs WB.)